me, Lamond,” he said into the quiet. “Why were ye so set against me when I first arrived?”
Lamond stiffened in the saddle and turned toward Gregor, mouth open. But instead of offering an answer, he hesitated.
“It is as I told ye before, MacLeod,” he said after a moment. “I didnae like the idea of an outsider meddling in clan affairs.”
It wasn’t the whole truth, judging by the way the man had shifted his gaze forward rather than meet Gregor’s eyes. Now, however, the explanation wasn’t accompanied by a hissing tone and a lethal glare.
When Gregor stared at him expectantly, Lamond rolled his shoulders in discomfort. “Verra well. It pricked my pride something fierce that Lady Roberta went looking for help—that I couldnae handle the matter on my own. I wasnae enough.”
That sounded far more honest, and something Gregor could understand.
“I joined the castle guard when I was but seven and ten,” Lamond continued. “I earned my position as captain one day at a time over three decades, and then ye came strutting in with yer bloody muscles and that glower…”
He waved vaguely at Gregor with a frown of his own. Gregor couldn’t help but chuckle. That only made Lamond scowl more, though his lips twitched with reluctant mirth.
“Unfortunately, it seems all the muscles and glowering in the world willnae solve this problem with the Gunns,” Gregor said, sobering. He met the captain’s blue gaze. “I admire a man who is protective of his own. Ye clearly love yer clan a great deal, Lamond. We willnae let these bastard Gunns win.”
“My mother was a Gunn.”
Gregor jerked at Lamond’s plainspoken declaration. Though instinct told him he could trust the captain, he couldn’t help but regard the man closer, watching for a telltale flick of his eyes or nervous twitch in his hands.
“What do ye mean?” Gregor asked carefully.
The captain stared back at him directly. “Just as I said. She met my father, who was a Morgan, at the clans’ joint Yuletide feast. That was long ago, of course, back when the clans were more friendly.”
When Gregor continued to stare at him, Lamond’s sandy brows winged.
“Ye arenae questioning my loyalty, are ye, MacLeod?”
In truth, he had been. The tension with the Gunns, all their thwarted efforts, and now the revelation that the captain of the Morgan clan guard was half-Gunn seemed to point to some nefarious conspiracy.
But Gregor knew how to read men. He’d first learned the skill out of necessity, when his father would come home drunk and volatile. He’d needed to be able to tell if the man would fly into a rage directed at Gregor’s mother, or if he would simply collapse on the floor and sleep off the whisky.
And when Gregor had left home, he’d honed the skill further each time he’d squared off against a new opponent. He could tell when a man lied, or hid the truth, or boiled with rage just below a calm surface. Lamond, on the other hand, was at ease, meeting Gregor’s gaze unflinchingly.
Gregor worked his jaw to loosen the tension there. “Nay.”
“It isnae a secret within the clan,” Lamond offered. “There was plenty of intermixing with the Gunns when things were more peaceable—with the MacWrays, too. In fact, the Laird’s mother, Lady Roberta’s grandmother, was a MacWray. She married into the Morgans as part of a peace alliance two generations past.”
Gregor hadn’t known that about Birdie’s grandmother, but it wasn’t overly surprising. Neighboring clans often intermarried, either for strategic peace agreements or simply because, as so often happened, the heart paid no heed to arbitrary borders and clan divisions.
“It makes this conflict with the Gunns all the more troubling,” Lamond added, “but it doesnae change my loyalty to my Laird and clan. And in truth…”
He cast Gregor a sideways glance and rubbed a thumb along his jaw as if considering whether or not to confide in him further.
“Aye?”
“That was one of the reasons I didnae like ye or trust ye at first,” Lamond said after a long hesitation. “Because I didnae miss the way Lady Roberta looked at ye, even from the moment I met ye.”
Gregor went rigid. “What?”
“It was obvious that she was…drawn to ye.”
“I dinnae ken what ye—”
“Come off it, MacLeod. If we are to call a truce between us, let us speak plainly.”
Gregor considered that while his guts slowly pulled into a knot. If Lamond had noticed Birdie and his…connection, had others as well?
“Laird Morgan and Lady Tessa are almost certainly unaware,” Lamond said, answering Gregor’s unspoken question. “But